The Perfect Book Fair Book

Here we are three days post-book fair and already I’m hoarding new books like a squirrel with a pile of October acorns. Eric and I are shamelessly emboldened by our success at the Akron show and are now entertaining the notion of the Cleveland NOBS show this fall. Last year we couldn’t do it because he had another show for his business that day (it’s only a single day event) and we really didn’t have a great inventory anyway. But I bought some books Monday – architecture and Asian art – and they’re pretty darn good, especially the two stand-outs pictured above.

We have a shot at some other books too, but this is really an odd situation. Three years ago we received a call from an attorney about a collection needing to be sold to settle an estate. We went to see it and offered $4000, but were refused. I was a little disappointed, but not a whole lot, so was amazed when a year later we were offered it again. Though we assured him that the same offer held, we still didn’t get the books! I’d long since forgotten about the whole thing, but now, out of the blue, comes a THIRD try. Of course an offer made three years ago in this volatile market is stone cold dead and I told the guy that on the phone. If we go see them we have to start from scratch. He agreed, but something tells me we’re off on another wild goose chase because I doubt very much they’re worth what they were in 2009. The interesting part though is that no one else has snapped them up in the interim. Bottom line – I don’t care one way or the other.

All of this did get me to thinking though about the perfect book fair book, if such a thing exists. From my meager three years experience doing book fairs I would nominate something by, or about, Mark Twain. Our first year we sold a first edition Twain, the title of which I embarrassingly can’t recall for the simple reason that I got it right before the fair and sold it on the closing bell two days later. This year we also sold My Father, Mark Twain written and signed by Twain’s daughter Clara Clemons, an amazing feat considering the fact  that I’d forgotten a box of books by the door when we left home Friday, so it never got to the fair until Saturday. The third reason I’d nominate Twain is because this year’s door prize basket (which I never got around to showing you due to my galloping case of the winter crud) featured a brand new copy of The Autobiography of Mark Twain which in itself (never mind the coffee, scone mix, jam and giant mugs) attracted so many entries the collection box looked like Santa Claus’s mid-section.

Of course sometimes an ideal book fair book can be one you price too low which causes it to get snatched up by a dealer before the sale even begins. This year that happened to us no less than four times. Included on the list was the Ravenna Bible which I showed you not long ago, but I was okay with that because I tripled my money even with the twenty per cent dealer discount. The other books which were also fine with me included a children’s book in a box that Eric bought last week and a first edition of The Great Lakes and the Vessels That Plough Through Them which I bought three years ago and am tired of looking at. It’s one of those books that lists at a lofty price, but no one seems to like it that much. There IS, however, one book that was bought by a dealer that makes me  totally crazy. Okay – batten down the hatches because a mini-rant is about to be unleashed.

Last year I bought  a first edition of the racy poem The Wild Party which everything in me said was a humdinger of a book. (You can find it here on the blog using the key word search.) But of course copies had landed in the  hands of sellers who want only to move the product without learning anything about it, so the online price, even for a first, had plummeted to the basement. I stuck my copy in the closet and left it there until last week when I hauled it out and discovered that it hadn't improved an iota. Briefly I debated it, but finally marked it up slightly over what I paid and took it to the fair where an out of state dealer IMMEDIATELY grabbed it. To be fair, we scored two Ohio titles from two different dealers at give-away prices too so that handily made up for it. But it still frosts me that people who don’t love books can manage to destroy the online market and ...

As we speak, one last box of Frank Lloyd Wright titles clamors for my attention, so  on that note I think I'm going to shut up now and go see about them. In just five short months I'll be needing some perfect book fair books. Who knows? Maybe Frank's the man for the job.